


cherry bomb, you are a mystery

by voodoochild



Series: The Edges In-Between [1]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, F/M, Indy Wrestling, Male-Female Friendship, Muslim Character, Mutual Masturbation, Open Marriage, Other, Protectiveness, Religious Conflict, but some things turn out okay, the indies sucked for women, there's some discussion and depiction of anti-muslim actions, this isn't really a happy universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 22:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: It's love at first moonsault. It's always love at first moonsault. [aka, the one where we turned left. aka, the one where Sami was always a girl]





	cherry bomb, you are a mystery

**Author's Note:**

> The first of three genderswap verses for Owens and Zayn. Title from the Gaslight Anthem's "Old Haunts", love to Chloe and Sara for helping solidify what you actually get when you fundamentally change Sami's gender and appreciating the results.

He sees her fly, and it's love at first sight.

(It's doomed, he knows it even then. She's too good for him, she's going to be a goddamned star, and she should be wrestling for WWE and married to some nice Muslim boy, not sweating it out on the indies getting paid in hot dogs and gas money.)

But his first love will always be wrestling, and Samira "please, please call me Sami only my father calls me Samira when he's mad at me" Zayn is 17 and moonsaulting better than anyone he's ever seen. She's breathless and pink in the cheeks after the show, he's stayed along with Kamikaze and Beef to meet the IWS guys and he can't stop staring at her like a creeper when she comes out in jeans and a Ramones shirt and a light blue hijab. She elbows him when she catches it.

"What, is it the makeup or the hijab? Because I thought I got all that crap off my face. If it's the hijab, I get it, it's not like there are any Muslim women wrestlers, and I suppose I could go without it, but that's weird and terrifying, so my Marti McFly wig and bandanna are a compromise-"

"It's your fucking moonsault," he blurts out. "It's beautiful."

She goes that shade of pink again, and laughs a little nervously as she bounces from side to side. "Uh, thanks a fucking lot I guess? Since we're cursing."

"I curse a lot," he says. It's stupid, he's stupid, he doesn't even know why he cares, he's going to go back to Rougeau's and never see her again.

"No fucking shit," she says, sunbeam smile sneaking onto her face. "Heard about your 450. The guys are saying you're good."

"I mean, I'm okay-"

She steps up right into his space, hand on his chest and a decent amount of force behind her shove. "You're more than okay and you know it. I just want to know if you're better than me. Come to the show next week and bring your gear. You know, if you think Papa Jacques will let you out to play."

His chest feels tight and tingly where she's laid her hand - small, with long artistic fingers - and it's like he can't pull air into his lungs. All he can do is nod, then watch her walk away to where some of the crew are waiting for her. She's gangly, probably going to be near his own height once she stops growing, and she walks with a meandering little step. She'll never make a valet, that's for sure, and he kicks himself for the fleeting thought of her accompanying him to the ring.

 _Stop it, Kevin, she’s gonna laugh you out of the ring. You’d be lucky to valet for_ her.

It’s a different kind of thought. He could get his Jimmy Hart on. He could do a Doc Brown meets Paul Heyman ripoff, be her mouthpiece and keep the creeper fans away. Everyone says he’s fun as hell on the mic. Maybe it’d be worth leaving Rougeau for.

(He tells her this idea six years later. They’re in some fleabag motel in the middle of Iowa, he’s high as a fucking kite on painkillers from a table bump from hell, and she bursts into almost-hysterical tears. _You white-knight motherfucker_ , she says, sniffling and curling herself carefully into his less-bruised side, _we’d have been laughed out of Quebec and you’d have been miserable as a manager._ )

The next week, she isn't wrestling, so she plops herself down next to him in the crowd and proceeds to narrate the longest, most tangential and yet nitpicky commentary he's ever heard. She's staggeringly insightful about wrestling, how character and storyline work, and he puts his foot in his mouth again.

"Why don't you become a booker? You'd write better shit than anything anyone here is booking-"

She slaps a hand over his mouth. He smells spice and cheap fruity body wash and something he can't identify, and her skin is so soft, he can't stop his mouth from quirking, kissing her palm. She yanks her hand away just as quickly, doesn't look at him except for an annoyed glare in the corner of her eye. 

"Okay, I'm going to pretend you didn't just say something so incredibly, mind-bogglingly stupid, because I'm a wrestler. I'm the best women's wrestler in Quebec and I don't want to sit in the back with a bunch of wannabe's and old-timers haggling over booking dudes that couldn't fucking touch me in a ring."

He can still taste her skin, so he just nods. 

"Anyway, shut up and look, look at Tim in this sequence, I love the Michinoku Driver, I'm gonna use it one day, look look Kevin he didn't go for the fucking cover - what the shit, that's a great spot for a one-count, let Dave show his strength and shove him, but he won't because Tim's gotta fucking go over-"

It's a whole two hours of Sami's commentary, and if he wasn't in absolute heartbreaking adoration with her after the moonsault, watching her jump into the ring and impatiently pace while waiting for him might have done it. His stomach's doing flips, god, he can't stand how perfectly graceful she is in a ring, and she's waiting for him. 

Ironically enough, they're out of synch. He fumbles the lockup and gets whacked in the ear. She's a half-step too slow on a drop-down and he barrels into her, knocking her clean to the mat. He's frozen for a moment, shit shit shit did he hurt her, he's never locked up with a girl before, until she kips up to her feet and forearms him right in the mouth. 

_Ow._

She smiles.

He smiles back.

Three moonsaults - her Asai, his double-jump, her standing - and a fuckton of chain wrestling later, they call it a draw.

***

They’ve known each other for about four years when it happens.

Sami traveling and hanging out backstage with the boys has never been a problem in IWS and Quebec, and even the PWG crowd stopped giving her shit once they got a look at her moves. She drives with Kevin, rooms with Kevin, and has had her own curtained-off changing area in IWS since she started. She hijacks a corner of the sweatbox for her own in Reseda, and if anyone thinks of ribbing her, one look from Kevin generally warns them off it. He won’t step in for every single comment, but he’s not going to let anyone be gross at her because they can’t stop thinking with their dicks.

It’s not in small-town America, it’s Philadelphia, and that’s why they never expect it. It’s CZW, three months into steady bookings that they drive down from Montreal for, Sami blasting her dumb punk music the whole way in the hopes of “forcing some actual culture on you, Kev, what the fuck, you have no soul”. The boys aren’t bad, they’ve even gone out for 2-am IHOP with them a few times, and while neither of them are exactly fond of Danzig, they can’t complain.

One freezing morning, they’re setting up a ring under a stretch of 95 that even the bums won’t go near, and as the newbies, Kevin and Sami have to help the other crew grunts. Sami is being Sami, which is to say she’s being exactly as irritating as she can be, yammering on about wanting to go to Lorenzo’s after the show and rhapsodizing about the awesome taco place they went last night and babbling about the upcoming tag match they’re letting her do a run-in for. She criticizes everyone on the crew, interrupting them incessantly, and it’s just Sami, it’s what she does, but one of the guys takes it personally and goes ballistic.

It’s ugly, the screaming and shoving that ensues when the guy - Rick or Ron or something like that - stiffs Sami right in the face, and yanks her hijab off.

Kevin can’t move, at first, because everything is copper-gold fire. Her _hair_ , it’s just beautiful, falling in curling waves to her shoulders, and it’s not until Rick-or-Ron hocks back to spit at her that he shakes himself out of it and punches the guy hard enough to break his nose. Blood spurts out, there’s bellowing and finger-pointing and Kevin puts himself between everyone else and Sami, daring them to move him.

Some of the boys break it up, and Kevin looks for Sami’s hijab, but it’s lying in a puddle of absolutely rancid-looking slush. He doesn’t think, pulls his hoodie off and hands it behind him to Sami, her face buried in his shoulder. 

“Are you all right-?” he starts to ask, but she's pale and furious and she won’t look at him. 

“Fine,” she says, zipping herself into his hoodie - it’d be cute, under any other circumstances - and yanking the strings to the hood tight. “You’ll get this back in 20 minutes, I need to go back to the motel. Keys?”

He doesn’t want to give them to her, but he knows how stubborn she is. He hands them over and she peels off her scarf in return. It’s thin and striped and looks dumb as hell, but he loops it around his neck and goes to finish stretching canvas. He lets himself be just a little satisfied that the scarf carries her scent. 

She returns with a new hijab - bright red, all but daring someone to take it off her - and while she returns his hoodie and changes in the usual spot and does her run-in as Generica, she’s quiet and distant. Won’t so much as say a word to him until they get back to their shitty hotel room.

“Do you wanna hit up Chickie’s-” he says, coming out of the bathroom, and has to stop because she’s unpinning the cloth of her hijab perfectly matter of factly. “Sami, you don’t-”

“You’ve already seen it,” she says, her voice low and tight. “Everybody did. I knew, I fucking knew it’d happen eventually. Some drunk asshole was gonna pull my wig off…”

“Hey, hey, no.” He decides to break their usual no-contact after midnight rule and catches her hands as gently as he can. “It’s me. And this… this is important to you, cherie, you sleep in your hijab.”

“Because technically you’re not _mahram_. And it’s comfortable.”

He’s familiar with the term only because he’s made her explain that she isn’t insulting him or something. Maybe it’s better to know she at least somewhat considers him marriageable. 

“So be comfortable,” he says, nudging her the way he would if today had been completely normal. 

She chews her thumbnail, one of her tells that means she’s freaking out. He doesn’t move, just lets her decide what she wants to do, which is pick up her usual soft black cotton scarf and go past him into the bathroom. She closes the door and runs the water, so he goes over to the bed and starts to set it up in their normal configuration. The floor is *really* suspect, so he can’t crash out on it, which means it’s pillow wall time.

They always keep a long body pillow on them in one of their bags to put down the middle of the bed, and a spare sheet for her to wrap herself in. It’s nothing remotely resembling permissible in Islamic law, but it’s what Sami has figured out satisfies her own beliefs, and he isn’t going to question it. He’s not going to be like her parents, harassing her to come home, give up wrestling, marry a nice boy and have a couple kids.

(There are times when he thinks, outrageously, of converting for her. It’s not so different, he tells himself, it’s still one-god-one-law-do-unto-others. Then he thinks of Christmas mass, of candles and communion and bells and prayers that beat in his heart, and knows he never could.)

She comes out of the bathroom in her long cotton pajamas - they’re almost like her ring gear, except purplish and softer - and her sleep hijab safety-pinned in place. He knows she’s still terrified and furious because her hands are shaking at her sides, and he waits her out. All the fidgeting and double-checking her luggage and restless pacing, until she crawls onto the mattress on the other side of the pillow wall and holds herself so still it looks like it hurts.

“ _Viens ici_ ,” he murmurs, and waits for her to curl into his arms. She’s breathing shaky and sharp, and he buries his nose in the cotton gathered at her left shoulder. “I wouldn’t let them hurt you. I wouldn’t.”

“You’re not always going to be around,” she says, voice thick. “I shouldn’t need a fucking bodyguard.”

“Shouldn’t. Got one anyway.”

“I don’t want-”

“Tough shit, Zayn,” he says, and dares to let his hands travel carefully over her upper arms. Muscle and cotton and heat, he’s known her four years and she astonishes him every day. “You got me. And since no one else will put up with you and your cheesy gimmick, you’re stuck with me.”

***

He turns 23, and his life changes. He has a kid. He gets married to a nice Catholic girl. And he gets signed to Ring of Honor.

Sami doesn’t go to Ring of Honor with him, not at first. She runs to Europe, flitting around Paris and Hamburg and Prague, wrestling with any promotion that’ll take her. After that it’s Japan, sending him emails full of hilarious travel stories and the smattering of Japanese she’s learned. He watches bootleg matches, Sami under a mask that covers her whole head, still using the Generica gimmick, but nothing hides the body language he spent six years learning. 

He watches her fall and be hurt and get back up every time, sees the little limp from her bad knee - the one she twisted off a bad landing from a back body drop onto the apron years ago. Watches how the crowd fucking loves her, how fun she is to watch in a ring, flying all over the place.

Two years without her. 

Two years, and then one day in Utica she walks into an arena five hours before bell time to be introduced as Age of the Fall’s new manager.

He and Jimmy have a great thing going, absolute white-hot heel heat, and if he hates the haircut and the clothes, at least it’s working. He’s booked five days a week, makes enough to keep his family fed, and the drives from Montreal to New York or Philly or Chicago aren’t bad. Cornette hates him, but he likes Jimmy, and so long as Jimmy wants to tag with Kevin, he doesn’t have to worry.

He’d agreed to the idea of a manager; it’ll be great drama, whoever it is can go for the cheap heat and distractions, if it’s a girl they’ll get to work six-mans with Claudio, Chris, and Sara, it opens the door for more talent and more women and more storylines. So he knows he can’t get pissed now, even though he sort of wants to.

_You don’t get to fucking waltz back into my life, you left me, you packed your shit and left when it got hard. I still haven’t really forgiven you._

He means to say it to her, he really does. And then she blinks those startled hazel-green-gold eyes at him and says his name like she didn’t even know he was here.

He fucking falls in love with her all over again.

It’s just like the last two years haven’t happened, and if he’s also feeling guilty, at least he has what amounts to a spousal permission slip (“she’s beautiful, and I know that tone in your voice, _mon minet_ , I’ve heard it since we met. How could I be jealous of that kind of love?”) after he calls Karina in somewhat of a panic. He and Sami fall back into their old rhythms, working out a debut for her, bouncing ideas off each other until they’re finishing each other’s sentences.

So he gets caught up in everything the night she debuts, planted in the crowd until the point where she hops the barricade and beats the hell out of Tyler, dragging him into the ring where Kevin and Jimmy bust him open. Kevin smears a heart on her face using the blood, fingers shaking and Sami's eyes glinting in excitement. While the crowd’s raining boos and jeers on them, all he sees is Sami.

All he keeps seeing is Sami, piling their stuff in the trunk of a rental and driving to their usual crash spot in Rochester, stopping for diner food and stealing each other’s fries (Sami) and milkshakes (Kevin), all the way to the hotel room.

They’re laughing and Sami’s making ridiculous gestures mocking their waiter and Kevin crowds her against the door to the room and kisses her. Her mouth is cool and sweet and tastes like vanilla milkshake, and she makes a soft, startled sound against his lips. 

“We can’t-” she says, pulling back and tapping a finger on his wedding ring.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “She said it was okay.”

Her hips push into his, her back arching where he’s got his hand spread, the maroon silk of her hijab filling his other hand. He hesitates, when he feels it, remembers all her rules and compromises, right up to the point where she gets the door open, shoves him inside, and starts unpinning her hijab as soon as the door closes.

“Oh my god,” she’s murmuring, still a hurricane of girl against him, his hand slips up her back and he almost whimpers feeling her lack of bra. “Fuck, I thought about this so much, every night with that mouth of yours inches away oh, do that again-”

"That" is working his way down her neck, chasing the edge of her hijab as she removes it. “Sami, sweetheart, talk to me, tell me what’s okay, I don’t wanna - ah, Jesus, _cherie_ \- don’t wanna do anything you don’t want, we can just lie down here-”

The silk flutters down to a chair and he actually does cry out at the sight of that beautiful hair. He strokes a shaking, gentle hand down the fall of it, and Sami’s hips shudder hard against his thigh. 

She gets him onto the bed, fingers curled into his tee-shirt and hair, tugging sharp and perfect on the latter. He curves his hand around her hip, deliberately moves it lower and breathes a wondering little “oh” against her ear as he feels her hot and damp through her workout pants and his shorts.

“I was - I’m different,” she says. “Japan made me be different. I had to go out without covering my head, I dated boys, had sex-”

“I can’t - fuck, you can’t tell me that,” he says, and she raises her head to narrow her eyes at him. He kisses her shoulder and presses his hand to her harder in apology. “I'm not … I'm jealous, sweetheart, and I have no right to be, and you’re still too beautiful to be letting me touch you.”

“You,” she pronounces, wrapping a hand around his wrist and grinding up against him, “are an idiot. You’re an idiot, Kevin, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want you. I wouldn’t be dying for you to touch me, god, please touch me, please put your mouth on me, please fuck me, I’ll beg for anything you want because I am absolutely that shameless and I’m really good at it-”

He can’t stand hearing any more, all of his blood has gone straight to his dick and he’s so hard he can’t *see*, but okay, he doesn’t need to see to flip her down to her back and slide between her legs. Kisses her belly under her plain blue tee-shirt, pushes it up to get at her skin, asks “yes?” with his hands on her waistband and gets a “yes yes yes” and her squirming to get out of her pants in response.

While she's doing that, and intermittently cursing at him, he gets his hands and mouth on her tits, distracting her. She wraps for shows, he's known that, and wears oversized shirts and dresses to sleep in, but he's very pleasantly surprised at her breasts. More than a handful, goosebumped against his tongue, very pink nipples she likes having sucked. The undersides are so soft, he barely has to use his teeth to mark her up, and her sharp cries and tugs to his hair keep his mouth moving down.

He works his way down her long, long legs, freckled and soft under his hands, and he’s breathing hot against her hipbone, greenish-blue boyshorts between his mouth and her skin. “Sami, Sami, you’re amazing, I’m gonna lick you, please let me do that?”

She sobs and pulls him down with a hand in his hair, and hearing her moan for him is among the hottest things he’s heard in his life. He loves this, he gets her shorts down those legs and starts by kissing all the freckles on her left thigh. She doesn’t want to make it easy, bucks and squirms and curses, but he holds her down and lets himself completely bliss out on her taste and scent. Which is - god, really amazing, she smells amazing and she tastes like everything he could have imagined. She’s not shy about directing him, which is so Sami it hurts. Orders him lower, harder, to the right, more tongue, hold her down…

She comes on his mouth, wet and sudden, her grip tight on his hair. She’s trembling hard as he breaks away from her, catches his breath and wipes his mouth on his shirt. He doesn’t want to let her go, but he doesn’t want to make her feel trapped, either, and she solves the problem by tugging him down and curling a leg over his hip.

“That was so good, fuck, you’re good at that,” she says, and he’s proud of the strain in her voice. She strokes fingers down his cheek, smiles as he brushes his mouth against them in a kiss. “Oh motherfucking hell, I missed you.”

“Yeah?” he asks, ever so slightly smug.

“A lot. Nobody spoke English. Or French. I couldn’t even have a conversation. And all the Japanese guys are obsessed with moves, there’s no story to it, and I could just hear you complaining.”

“Your matches were so fucking good, Sami, you know they were. You didn’t need me.”

She wrinkles her nose at him. “Of course I did, I’m not gonna argue with you about this, especially not when I owe you an orgasm.”

“Um, about that-” he starts, and has to catch her left hand that’s meandering up his thigh. “I can touch you and get you off, but my wife has rules. No sex.”

“Oral?” It’s a little hopeful and it hurts him to shake his head. “I take it I’m not allowed to touch your dick?”

“If I want to come, I’ve gotta do it.”

“So I’ll just lie here and look pretty?” she quips, and grabs for him when he goes to roll away. “Hey, no, _habibi_ , I want to see you. Can I see you?” He nods, and she rests a palm on his chest. “Will you take your shorts off at least?”

He’s probably going to explode as soon as he gets anywhere near his dick, but she looks so hazy-eyed and hungry that he nods again and goes for his shorts. Kicks them down and off him and lets his hand rest on his dick pushing through the front of his boxers. Sami drapes herself over his left thigh, still damp between her legs, and rests her forehead against his.

“No touching, got it. I will not touch your dick, even though for the record, I really want to. You should tell her that.” He startles, badly, and Sami grins. “Oh yeah, that’s a rule your wife definitely has, and you better give her a good report. And yeah, of course I’m gonna talk while you get off, you’ve met me, have you ever known me to shut up?”

His head falls back, but he tells himself it’s just because he can’t keep from starting to jerk himself off, slow and careful. He’s leaking already, slicking his own palm, and he’s floating on Sami’s scent and her tits pressed to his arm and her thighs against his. 

“Fuck, you look good doing that. You look amazing. I used to hear you guys, back when we were in CZW and IWS, jerking off when you thought I was asleep. I could pick you out because I know your sounds, Kev, I know how fucking gorgeous you moan - just like that, exactly like that - and I used to imagine myself being brave enough to roll over and touch you.”

He loves how straightforward she is, he never has to question if this is true because if it weren’t, she wouldn’t say it. And there’s her voice, honey-rough to match the gold in her hair, he never wants her to stop talking.

“You’re brave enough, _cherie_ ,” he says, and she laughs, stretches up to press her mouth to his jaw. 

“I wasn’t then, I was so insufferable, don’t give me that look and hey, hey - slow down. C’mon, you can do it for me, slow down, oh man I felt that. You like it when I tell you what to do?”

The only possible answer is: “Oh holy fuck, you have no idea.”

She giggles against his beard, rubs her nose against his cheek. “Good, that’s really good. Don’t go any faster, mmmmm, the way you look, the way you sound - god, I want to ride your face, have you lick me again. I want _something_ , fuck, want you to fuck me just like that. Just that hard and steady.”

He makes a truly stupid noise, his free hand tangling into her hair, and she shivers a little. 

“Did you think about it, too? Every time we got into a ring, fuck, I used to hate taking powerbombs because I’d just keep thinking about you keeping me there. Putting me against the wall, the turnbuckles, and - you know, I knew what I wanted, but I could never think the words. It was you eating me out, fucking me, just going to town. I’d have gone crazy, screamed my head off, you know I would, you just made me actually cry, _mon cher_ -”

The images break him - Sami on her knees over him, the heat and slickness of her, getting her under him, how she’d cry out and pull his hair and be the most gorgeous thing in existence - and he can’t stop from stroking himself harder and faster. She presses her mouth to his and he feels her hand scrambling between her thighs. She rubs at herself, falling apart right along with him.

Between the heat of her mouth and her panting cries and the silk of her hair falling on his shoulder, he comes hard into his hand, bites at her lip enough to send her over too, and they fall into a tangle of messy, sweaty limbs. His heart is still racing, and he bites back the truth that wants to spill out - _I love you, I’ve loved you since that moonsault, I never want to be without you again._

He doesn’t tell her any of it, just cleans them up with a spare towel and lets her steal one of his shirts. She shrugs into it, crawls back into bed to curl up in his arms, and rests her head on his chest.

“This is ours,” she says, sudden and quiet and intense. “It’s . . . I know it’s not going to be anything else. But this part of me is yours and this part of you is mine and that’s never going to change.”

Like the idiot he is, he believes her.

***

Things change, because of course they do. Life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan, and they were never going to get away with making out and trading orgasms on alternate Sundays.

Age of the Fall runs its course. People join and leave, he and Jimmy win and lose and win and lose the tag titles again, and Sami starts teasing a face turn. She’s an amazing manager, but she misses wrestling and he doesn’t blame her a bit.

It all ends in the Manhattan Ballroom in December. He wins the “control of Age of the Fall” match against Jimmy, and just as he pulls Sami onto the ring apron to celebrate, she blasts him with a steel chair. Leaves him lying in a pool of his own blood and walks out. It’s the angle everyone will be talking about, and no one’s going to forget.

That’s kayfabe, but Sami leaves him that night for real; he’s in the locker room getting stitches in the back of his head when she comes in. Silent, tentative, chewing on her lower lip, and he finally pulls her to sit in the chair in front of him.

“Just tell me.”

“I’m leaving,” she says, and he forgets how to breathe. “I’m going back to Montreal. I’m, um - I might be engaged. That’s kind of what Muslim parents do for their wayward daughters who are twenty-five and still unmarried, when they want them to stop running around and bringing shame on the family, and I kind of - I don’t want to disappoint them anymore, and it’s not like I want to leave, but Cornette won’t book me as a wrestler and I can’t deal with the road unless it’s with you and I’d never want you to miss out on being champ . . . fuck. Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry _habibi_ , I hate this.”

He doesn’t think he can speak without crying, and he’s lost that battle judging by Sami’s stricken look and her fingers brushing his cheek. She sits with him until the medics are done, her hands wrapped around one of his, and he tries not to think of it as goodbye.

Even though it is.

They see each other every so often. It’s all respectable and shit. Barbeques, outings to Mount Royal or the St. Lawrence, Habs games at the Bell Center. She does marry that guy her parents picked out; Mohsif is a doctor, ridiculously good-looking, and Kevin can’t even hate him because he’s so friendly and honest. Kevin goes to her wedding, brings his wife and son and dances with her at the _dholki_ first so he can prove he does, in fact, know how to dance, and then to tease her about being nervous in her ornate yellow gown.

(“My word, Samira, did they actually get makeup and a dress and henna on you?”

“Don’t tease,” she yells over the music, “I’ll smear my _mehindi_ hitting you and then have to spend another three hours getting it redone.”)

After that, it’s six months of chasing the ROH championship, another seven holding and defending it. He throws himself into wrestling, doesn’t even consider anything more until Nick elbows him one night, standing at gorilla during a PWG show, and tells him William Regal’s in the crowd.

Kevin’s match with Johnny tears the house down, and after, a very complimentary Regal gives him a business card with a date and time written on the back. Four months to get into shape for a WWE tryout, he almost fucks it up due to nerves, but he drops thirty pounds and gets back into lifting and absolutely blows everyone else at the combine out of the water. Debuts in four months, gets his first title in three more (a beautiful, hellacious series with Pac), and then takes out Cena on his seventh-month anniversary with the company.

And so, two years later, after a nice run with the Intercontinental title, he gets the news: second-ever Universal champion, August 29th in Houston.

The feeling of winning is already indescribable, the crowd’s cheers and chants, Hunter (holy mother of god, he calls Triple H “Hunter” now) raising his hand. He gets backstage, through the curtain, and his heart just fucking stops.

Sami’s there.

Sami, in a beautiful green dress and hijab, wiping tears from her eyes and pulling him to her. He’s babbling, asking her how she got here, why she’s backstage, why she hasn’t returned his calls (he knows that, it’s her charity work, she’s probably just stepped off a plane, and Jimmy probably abused his Creative powers to text her about the belt).

“Kevin, Kevin, _mon cher_ ,” she says, “I couldn’t not. You did it, you did it, this is yours-”

He remembers that motel in Rochester, salt on her skin and her hair trailing across his shoulder. He remembers worse motels, Utica and Levittown and Cleveland and Detroit and Reseda, disinfectant and bringing their own sheets. He remembers her wrestling on a dislocated shoulder and refusing to show any reaction until the door locked behind them and she cried like a child. He remembers her counting loose change to go to Cracker Barrel and the first time they could afford a real restaurant.

“No, this is _ours_.” He holds the title between them, puts her fingers on the red leather and diamonds. “You got me here. I wish you were with me, but you made me into what I am.”

Wrestling is theirs, even if she isn’t his, and so his championship reign begins.

**Author's Note:**

> Cherie = darling  
> Mahram = a male that is close kin to a Muslim woman, someone it is forbidden to marry  
> Viens ici = come here  
> Mon minet = cat (diminutive, m)  
> Mon cher = my darling  
> Habibi = sweetheart, love  
> Dholki = first night of a Muslim wedding, where the bride and groom hold separate celebrations meant for family and friends to dance  
> Mehindi = henna applied to a Muslim bride’s hands


End file.
